Orihime Inoue glanced up from the pair of socks she was knitting, and found her gaze drawn to the back of the head of the boy sitting in front of her.

Uryu Ishida. What a fascinating paradox.

Orihime knitted her eyebrows together in thought, tilting her head to the side slightly as she regarded the back of her good friend's head. Uryu was complicated, there was no doubt about that, but Orihime got the impression that out of all of her friends, he was one of the easiest to understand. In some ways, he was like a lemon.

Orihime giggled at this thought, mentally picturing Uryu's indignant reaction if she were to ever share this notion with him. In truth, Orihime had been searching for a suitable metaphor for the phenomenon of Uryu Ishida's existence for months.

Tsundere. That was the best way Orihime would have described her friend if somebody had held a sword to her throat and forced her to choose one word to sum him up. Orihime recognised that Uryu Ishida was an aloof person, after all, she would have to be denser than lead to deny this side of his personality, but she knew that for all of the taunts and barbs and snarky quips Uryu flung at the world, particularly Ichigo Kurosaki, he only threw them because that was his way of dealing with being close to his friends. Some people just weren't good with intimacy, Orihime thought.

What fewer people saw, however, was that when his triggers weren't around, Uryu was one of the kindest, most caring people Orihime had ever known. When they had been in the Soul Society, Uryu had been more than perfectly civil to Orihime the entire time. He had saved her life several times over, kept watch over her while she was sleeping, and even defended her from the unwanted advances of some nobody-fifteenth seat, and in Hueco Mundo he had admitted willingness to die for her and then (albeit reluctantly) agreed to take her to where Ichigo and Ulquiorra had been fighting, just because she had asked him to.

And then, when he made it clear that he wasn't happy about it, she had realised that he was reluctant because he was actually afraid for her safety.

No, a man who risks life and limb (in this case, literally) to protect their friends is not really as sour as he would like for people to think.

And this is why Orihime regarded Uryu as lemon-like. Everybody knows that lemon leaves a very sour taste in the mouth, one which makes you purse your lips and make a funny face. However, most people are aware of the fact that other than for rotting one's teeth, lemon juice is very healthy, and if you add it to sugar and fizzy water you get lemonade, one of the world's sweetest, most well-loved drinks.

What fewer people know, however, is that gram for gram, lemons contain more complex sugars than strawberries do.